We wrote about Bush fave Albert Gonzales and his Texas Clemency Memos here. Just a reminder they are online here.

As the legal counsel to Texas Governor George W. Bush, Alberto R. Gonzales — now the White House counsel, and widely regarded as a likely future Supreme Court nominee—prepared 57 confidential death-penalty memoranda for Bush's review. Never before discussed publicly, the memoranda suggest that Gonzales repeatedly failed to apprise Bush of some of the most salient issues in the cases at hand.

....During Bush's 6 years as governor 150 men and 2 women were executed in Texas—a record unmatched by any other governor in modern American history. Each time a person was sentenced to death, Bush received from his legal counsel a document summarizing the facts of the case, usually on the morning of the day scheduled for the execution, and was then briefed on those facts by his counsel; based on this information Bush allowed the execution to proceed in all cases but one. The first 57 of these summaries were prepared by Gonzales...

Author Alan Berlow obtained the never before published memos, which is permitted under the Texas Public Information Act.

Joe Conasen writes approvingly today about a Kerry-Clark ticket. He calls it a "one-two punch." We agree. So does Eric, over at Hamster.

Amnesty International has released a new report focusing on what happens to children who enter the U.S. without parents.

Illegal immigrant children who are detained after entering the United States without parents often are imprisoned with young convicts, denied access to lawyers and at times strip-searched or placed in solitary confinement for minor infractions, according to a new report by an advocacy organization.

"I would describe the situation as Dickensian," said William F. Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA. "It's truly incredible that in the 21st century in the United States we would allow children who themselves have been victims of crimes to be treated this way."

Former VP Al Gore has a new avocation--he is seeking funding to start a liberal-oriented cable news channel and a liberal talk radio station.

Sounds good to us. Should we add that we're available to comment?

The New York Times has this profile of Robert Morvillo, Martha Stewart's chief lawyer.

Dog the Bounty Hunter made good on his promise five months ago to bring in Max Factor Heir Andrew Luster.

He's an ex-felon turned muscle-shirted, leather-pants-wearing, born-again Christian bounty hunter. The motto of his Honolulu-based company: "From 18 to 80 Blind crippled or Crazy If they can't walk or crawl we'll Drag Em Back."

We remember when Dog first hooked up with motivational Guru Anthony Robbins. Robbins lived in Hawaii and Dog went out there and fell in love with the place. What does Robbins think about Dog now?

"Dog's a genius at the practical side of humanity, especially when it comes to understanding the criminal mind," says Anthony Robbins, world-renowned motivational speaker who talks highly of the bounty hunter's abilities in his book Awaken the Giant Within. "He's the best in the world at what he does."

Dog says he ain't no role model but Robbins disagrees:

In fact, he allowed his son, Joshua, to spend many summers under the bounty hunter's wing simply because he found Dog to be a fine example. "What makes him so special," Robbins adds, "is that he has the mind-set to convert these criminals to a better life. Itss as if hess here to serve a greater good."

How does someone become a bounty hunter anyway?

Chapman says he first worked as a bounty hunter in 1979 after serving 18 months of a five-year sentence in Texas. A leader in a motorcycle gang called the Devil's Disciples, he was convicted for his role in a fatal shooting that took place during a drug deal.

When Chapman was fresh out of jail and owing child support, a judge said he would make a payment toward the debt if Chapman could bring back a fugitive authorities were seeking. Chapman found his man and was hooked.

President Bush shows his arrogance again. He not only declines the Dems' reasonable request to caucus on Supreme Court replacement nominees, he nominates Ex-Starr Aide Brent Kavanaugh for a seat on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

This is the same appeals court for which he nominated Miguel Estrada. Kavanaugh co-authored Starr's report on former President Clinton.

Kavanaugh's nomination would suggest Bush is spoiling for a fight with Senate Democrats while the administration's selection of judges is already a raw issue between the parties. The D.C. Circuit court is considered the second most powerful in the land. Kavanaugh, 38, was involved in many of the Clinton administration's legal controversies, and has played a key role in choosing Bush's judicial nominees.

Kavanugh is a partner at Kirk and Ellis, the same firm as Starr. And consider this: There have been two vacancies on that court since Clinton was President. "Republicans blocked Clinton from filling at least one of them by arguing that additional judges were not needed."

[thanks to Steve Smith of Smythe's Blog for the link]

We're heartenend to see major media like the New York Times pay some attention to the inequities in the feds' immigrant roundup policies.

The Times reports that the FBI has relied on dubious tipsters for information that has led to the arrests and detention of many immigrants. The problems aren't over for the immigrants when they are released, because their names are still entered in a national crime registry as having been arrested for terrorism, even if they were never charged with a crime, which in turn results in their being denied housing, employment and even airplane tickets.

It's a long article, with lots of horror stories.

More news on the police wiretaps on Scott Peterson's phone.

The police intercepted 3,858 phone calls on Peterson's home and cell phones in the three week period between January 10 and February 4. 69 of the calls were between him and his lawyer. One was between Peterson and his private investigator. That leaves approximately 3,700 calls to other people. Peterson was a fertilizer salesman by occupation. His wife was gone, so he wasn't talking to her. He was likely not working much after her disappearance. Who else was he talking to? Amber, several dozen times maybe. His family, maybe 100 times. But that still leaves 3,500 calls. Could there have been that many calls from the media seeking interviews?

The latest news is that one of the investigators involved with the court-ordered wiretapping says he was just advised by the software company that designed the wiretap system of an additional 176 calls. The prosecutor says these calls are news to them and have asked the Judge to screen them to see if law enforcement can listen to them.

Mark Geragos, Peterson's lawyer, is seeking to toss the wiretaps, or recuse the prosecutors who listened to the privileged calls. A hearing is set for June 26. Geragos has subpoenaed the Judge who issued the wiretap order to the hearing because he did not have a court reporter present during his conferences with the prosecutors, as is required by California law.

We're sure it will be an interesting hearing, but still, our main question is who has 4,000 telephone conversations in three weeks and who was Peterson talking to?

The FBI has been undergoing internal changes--many of its drug agents have been moved into the terrorism unit and some members of Congress are upset.

The General Accounting Office, in testimony Wednesday to a House committee, found that the number of FBI field agent positions dedicated to drug crimes had dropped from about 1,400 in fall 2001 to just over 800 today.

The number of new drug investigations has fallen from 1,825 in 2000 to 944 last year and just 310 in the first half of this year. At the same time, new FBI counterterrorism investigations have risen from just over 1,000 prior to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to 4,408 by early this year.

....36 percent of the FBI's field agent positions are now working on either counterterrorism or counterintelligence, compared with 26 percent shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. The report says that the FBI faces challenges in finding enough agents to meet the terror threat without further siphoning off resources from other criminal investigations.

The solution, according to FBI director Robert Mueller, is for Congress to fund more agent positions.

I got a call at 8:00 a.m. (MT) this morning from Fox News saying Andrew Luster had been arrested in Mexico, and the bounty hunter who had arrested him was also in jail. They were letting me know because I was scheduled to do a segment at 11:00 am (MT) on the Scott Peterson case, and they are adding Luster to the segment.

I took the news kind of personally, because Duane Chapman, or Dog the Bounty Hunter as he's usually called, is a bondsman I have used in the past and like a lot. After a few years of not being in touch (he moved to Hawaii and mostly lives there, although he still has his business in Denver) we hooked up again by coincidence a few weeks ago. As soon as I heard the news from Fox, I called his wife Beth in Hawaii who, understandably, was quite distraught. Not only did they arrest Dog, but they arrested her stepson, brother in law, a movie actor (who recently was in the film Italian Job), the camera man and the sound man.

Some things to know about Dog: He never carries a gun. Mace, sometimes, no guns. He has a really interesting life story, which you can read here.

As to the Luster capture, here's what Beth said (she had not yet spoken with Dog, but with one of the persons present):

Instapundit has a new TechCentral Station column up today on what makes a good blog. Glenn should know!

We also appreciate Glenn mentioning us along with Volokh and How Appealing as a blog providing academic or legal expertise.

So what's the secret to good blogging? Glenn says,

In every case, though, what brings success is knowing something other people don't know, and expressing it well.

All of this means, of course, that if you came to this column looking for blogging secrets, well, there aren't any. The key to good blogging is simple: have something interesting to say, and say it well. Kind of like, well, every other sort of writing - just faster, and with links. There's nothing new about that, but it's still a kind of magic, as good writing always is.

Speaking of good blogs, James Capozzola of Rittenhouse Review is one of the top writers around--meaning he just writes better than anyone else--except for Jeanne at Body and Soul who is on a par with him. Anyway, Jim announced today that is withdrawing from the race against Arlen Specter to be the next Senator from Pennsylvania. We think he was only running in the blogosphere, but Jim, you had a great run. We would have voted for you.

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